The most important things to us here at YouTube are 1) listening to our users 2) bringing them the best online video experience with the most cutting edge features and functionality possible. For quite some time our users have been asking us for the ability to upload pictures to their profile. While this would have been a pretty straight forward request for us to grant, we wanted to do something bigger and better than just plain old, boring profile pictures. Come on, everybody does profile pictures. Profile pictures are so Web 1.0. YouTube is about creativity, self-expression, broadcasting yourself to the world - and our users deserve something better.

So, we sent our big brains at YouTube Labs off to solve this dilemma and what they came back with, is absolutely revolutionary. The technology for this new feature is not quite ready for prime time, but we're so excited about it, we had to share it and give you a glimpse of what is yet to come. It's with great pride that I introduce to you.......The Smiley Face Factory™!

You can see below an example of how The Smiley Face Factory™ will work, you select the eyes, nose and mouth you feel best represents your mood at any given point in time and voilà! you've got a new Smiley Face (of course your face may actually not be so smiley depending on your mood). We believe The Smiley Face Factory™ will revolutionize how the online world expresses itself and will push the boundaries of Web 2.0 into Web 3.0.

Stay tuned for the release of The Smiley Face Factory™, and other new and exciting features from YouTube Labs. And as always, we encourage your thoughts and feedback.

The Smiley Face Factory :*)™

The past few months have been phenomenal for us here at YouTube, thanks to all of you. We've been going through unprecedented growth. Most days it seems we can barely catch our breath trying to keep up with everything, and sometimes I sit at my desk and look around at the 20 or so people around me and cannot believe how far we've come in such a short period of time. No matter how fast we grow or how large we may become, our primary goal is, and will always be, about being in touch with our users and providing them the best online video experience possible. That being said, we've gotten a fair amount of emails lately about the new 10 minute limit we've implemented for video uploads. For those of you not familiar with this change, we've always had a 100MB file limit for uploads. We also recently implemented a 10 minute length limit. This change won't impact the vast majority of our users. We know that over 99% of videos uploaded are already under 10 mins, and we also know that most of our users only watch videos that are under about 3 minutes in length.

So, if most of our users are uploading and watching short form video clips, why even bother to make the change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? Well, if you've followed our blog postings or any of the press articles, you know we're constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users. We poked around the system a bit and found that these longer videos were more likely to be copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies than the shorter videos posted. However, we also recognize that there are legit content creators out there who may have videos over 10 mins, so we've created a Premium Content Program for those of you with professional-produced videos.

What about the little guys you ask? We hear ya. We know that although most users are uploading short form clips, there are those of you out there that are video bloggers or amateur film makers that have legitimate, user generated content over 10 mins, and obviously, this is not an ideal situation for you. We recognize that, and we're actively working on a solution that will allow for those of you with longer form user generated content, while still preventing copyrighted full length episodes from entering the system. In fact, if you are a user with videos over 10 mins, please contact us. We want to hear from you. We want to know how you've been impacted by this change and any thoughts or ideas you may have.

You’re probably wondering about the MTV2 clip and “official partner” logo on our home page. In addition to all your videos, we are starting to feature entertaining, professional clips such as scenes from the MTV2 Andy Milonakis Show promoting the new season that starts March 31st. This is just a start, we’re in discussions with lots of networks, movie studios and record labels to feature more cool videos on YouTube.

We know you’re passionate about watching and sharing videos. These new partners will enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube where the majority of the videos will continue to be contributed by you. Also, please keep telling us which videos you want us to feature on our home page.